Scientific Truth: “Fracking has been an unmitigated disaster for the planet’s climate system.”

Scientific truth by Ned Ketyer, Dec 3, 2020, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

In the Nov. 16 editorial “Goodbye, Paris,” the editorial board continues its climate-denying disinformation campaign regarding shale gas development and climate change by repeating an easily debunked industry-sponsored myth.

The fact is, fracking has been an unmitigated disaster for the planet’s climate system.

Yes, burning methane produces less carbon dioxide compared with burning the energy equivalent of coal. But compared to coal, the U.S. now uses much more methane than we did before, and we export massive volumes of gas to other countries that don’t count against America’s total of greenhouse gas emissions.

Methane, the primary component of natural gas that is far more powerful at trapping heat than carbon dioxide, leaks like crazy and is vented on purpose into the atmosphere from well pads, compressor stations, processing facilities and pipelines that scar Pennsylvania landscapes. In Canada too, and other parts of America!

Practically every peer-reviewed scientific study validates the overwhelming scientific consensus that extracting and burning all fossil fuels, including fracked gas, is making the climate crisis worse, not better. The editorial board should read some of that science before making statements it can’t objectively defend.

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